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“O beautiful, for chicken fried, for breakfast served all day…”

These are just two of the top 10 emerging food and restaurant trends on the annual Seat 1A Food Trend List. The list arrives just in time for you to discuss around your holiday table – and maybe even serve on it.

This year’s trend list began with 22 concepts based on ideas and observations from restaurants all over the U.S., and was culled down to 10 with the help of an esteemed panel of culinary experts:

Jason Kessler, founder of FlyandDine.com and a contributor to American Way, Sunset, Los Angeles Magazine and more.

Robin Selden, managing partner and executive chef of Connecticut-based Marcia Selden Catering, 2015 Chef of the Year nominee and board member of the International Caterers Association. The company produces over 2,000 events annually. (Full disclosure: Robin is also my second cousin).

This year's list features new refinements to American classics (fried chicken, ice cream sandwiches), new, accessible foods from the Mediterranean and Hawaii, and tweaks on the cuisine of India. Plus, new technology is enabling restaurants get into businesses that would have been unthinkable even 5 years ago, when this list started.

It was big news when McDonald’s announced this year that many of its restaurants would serve breakfast all day. “The traditional meal periods have been gradually disintegrating over the past decade,” says Bret Thorn of Nation’s Restaurant News, “as fewer people eat breakfast, lunch and dinner and more people graze as their whims and schedules permit.” He calls meals at alternative times of day “simultaneously subversive and comforting.”

But it’s not just fast food: all-day breakfast is advantageous for fancier restaurants too. “Food costs (eggs, flour, milk) are very low and satisfaction level is high,” Thorn says, though he notes that restaurants doing all-day breakfast will benefit from a liquor license. “People like mimosas and bloody Marys with breakfast.”

Mike Thelin of Feast Portland, for one, is happy with this change. “I will eat bacon and eggs for any meal of the day. Glad to know I’m not alone. Breakfast for dinner is always special, so I’m surprised this trend took so long to land.”

That said, says Thorn, “We’re not sure yet how McDonald’s all-day breakfast will pan out. Several other fast food chains, including Sonic Drive-In and Jack in the Box have been offering all-day breakfast for years.”

“Rice bowls have been a staple in Asia for decades, and they fit into the way Americans eat perfectly,” says Jason Kessler of FlyandDine.com. “Lots of flavors mixed together in a convenient format.”

“I don’t know why, but people seem to think food is better for you if you put it in a bowl,” says Bret Thorn. “I guess it does limit how much food you can eat in one sitting. There’s also something comforting about a meal in a bowl, and possibly an antidote for all those shared plates.”

Among quick service restaurants, Panera and Del Taco have recently added bowls, and Chipotle has been rolling out its ShopHouse subsidiary, which puts Southeast Asian ingredients and preparations on top of rice (or noodles or salad greens).

The lowly fried chicken has become the new object of everyone's affection. “Fried chicken is the new pork belly!” proclaims Christine Couvelier of Culinary Concierge.

“Americans love fried chicken,” says Bret Thorn of Nation’s Restaurant News, “and especially boneless fried chicken in the form of fried breast in a sandwich or faux wings.” Apart from the taste factor, “Beef prices are at or near record highs,” which for the restaurant industry “makes chicken a more desirable thing to sell.”

“Who needs a McChicken when you can get a perfectly fried breast on a real bun that's not made with all kinds of chemicals?” asks Jason Kessler of Fly & Dine.

Could poke be next in the long line of raw fish trends? Photo: Danielle Leavell/Getty Images

4 - Poke

This Hawaiian specialty may be the next in a long history of trend-making with raw fish (think sushi, ceviche and fish tartare). Poke (also spelled “poki”) features diced raw fish and/or seafood, often seasoned with soy sauce and/or sesame oil and tossed with anything from sea salt to minced green onion, seaweed, sesame seeds and diced jalapeno.

“Our clients travel all over the world and always look to us to give them new and exciting foods that are clean and healthy too,” says Robin Selden of Marcia Selden catering, which offers a make-your-own poke bar.

In restaurants, poke seems to be more an emerging trend than an established one. Bret Thorn notes that it’s really strongest in Los Angeles, where “lots of national trends start.” Sweetfin and Wiki Poki in L.A. have a local following. But, he says, “I think we still need to see a catalyst that will get poki exposed to the rest of the county.”

“I wish it were a bigger trend,” says Mike Thelin. “I love poke.”

New food delivery services make cooking from top chefs just a click away. Image: Munchery.

5 - Chef-Driven Food Delivery Services

“We're a lazy nation,” says Jason Kessler. “We want a chef to cook for us without having to put on pants.”

But there’s a huge difference between the traditional ordering-in (pizza, Chinese, Thai, etc.) and the current trend: High end restaurants and chefs are increasingly getting into the act. Christine Couvelier calls them “Chefpreneurs, chefs defining themselves as retail products and brands. Watch for many, many more.”

“In the past, most of the food delivery services were more about delivery infrastructure than food quality,” says Mike Thelin.

“Speedy and streamlined delivery technology is giving chefs new markets for their food,” says Bret Thorn, especially for millennials and professionals.

Think of Munchery (the San Francisco-based, app-based food delivery startup), Uber Food (which delivers meals from well known restaurants by Uber cars) or Maple (the new delivery service spearheaded by New York-based celebrity chef David Chang, of Momofuku, etc.).

Case in point: Robin Selden herself. “While I cook the most incredible foods for my clients, I never have time to worry about myself. Most times I’m eating a bowl of Cheerios when I get home from work at 1am.” She has been getting meals delivered from her “friend and fellow chef,” Rocco DiSpirito, from his Pound a Day Diet meal plan.

It's early but growing stages for this deceptively simple but impressive looking and deeply satisfying dish of North African origin: eggs poached over a compote of stewed bell pepper and tomato, with cumin, parsley and other herbs and spices. From its home countries of Libya and Tunisia, it’s made its way stateside largely by way of Israel, where it’s popular for breakfast and lunch.

“Fabulous flavors!!!” raves Christine Couvelier.

“It’s a somewhat exotic menu item, but it’s eggs, so it’s also approachable,” says Bret Thorn. “Although an increasing number of consumers seek culinary adventure, very few want to be scared by their food. Eggs are not scary.”

Couvelier also likes its flexibility. Although these days it can be found mostly at restaurants, shakshuka “also is possible for consumers to create at home.”

“Our most popular sandwich is the coconut macaroon with chocolate almond ice cream,” says Robin Selden. “We also do a very popular salted caramel French macaron with caramel popcorn & bacon ice cream.”

More and more fine-dining chefs are getting into the multiple location, quick-service restaurant business. Mike Thelin calls this “the future of food.”

Although this trend seems to have broken out in the last year or two, it’s not exactly new. Bret Thorn puts its origin back in 2003, “when Tom Colicchio [of Craft] opened ’wichcraft, a sandwich chain using the same ingredients he was sourcing for his fine dining restaurant.” Others cite Wolfgang Puck Express (which debuted in 1991), Danny Meyer's Shake Shack (2004) and Bobby Flay's Bobby's Burger Palace (2008).

What’s behind this trend? “The farm-to-table chef movement introduced diners to an entirely new vocabulary, cast of ingredients, creativity and ideals toward quality and sourcing,” says Mike Thelin. “That changed everything we thought we knew about food. Diners now want great chef-driven food three meals a day, seven days a week, and even at fast food restaurants.”

Not to mention that it’s profitable. Bret Thorn notes that selling quality casual meals to the masses can make chefs “a lot more money than if they sell $250 tasting menus to a few people.”

Cash on the table might be becoming a thing of the past. Photo: Getty Images

9 - The End of Tipping?

The restaurant industry’s biggest bombshell of the season, if not the year, came when New York’s Union Square Hospitality Group, run by Danny Meyer, announced that it would end tipping and raise menu prices to compensate waitstaff for the foregone income. Other chefs, including Tom Colicchio, are following suit.

“Danny Meyer didn’t start the trend,” says Mike Thelin, “but USHG’s scrapping of tipping is a huge moment in the evolution and a validation and sign of the times.”

“It's about time we moved to a more European model,” says Kessler, “where servers make a living wage and don't just treat serving jobs like a way to make cash in between acting gigs.”

It’s not just consumers and restaurant geeks who are demanding a change to tipping policy. “With labor costs going up, particularly in the form of minimum wage, restaurants are facing financial challenges that threaten to upset restaurants’ economic models,” says Bret Thorn.

“I believe that tipping will one day be the exception, not the rule,” says Mike Thelin.

Christine Couvelier calls Meyer’s move “a very important statement about the value that should be placed on the craft of hospitality.” Naysayers fear that without the motivation of a tip, restaurant staff will feel less obligated to provide good service. And Couvelier warns that as prices rise to adjust to the no-tipping policy, “The ‘value’ has to be there,” from the greeting, to the service to the taste.

“The flavors of India are so rich and varied that chefs should be salivating to incorporate them into their arsenal,” says Jason Kessler. “Akasha Richmond is doing wonderful things at Sambar in Culver City, Calif. with classic Indian ingredients used in fascinating ways.”

“I do think that more regional specific Indian cuisine is showing up as consumers are becoming more familiar with Indian spices and dishes,” says Christine Couvelier.

Bret Thorn cites fast-casual Indian places like Soho Tiffin Junction in New York, Kasa in San Francisco, and Chai Pani in Decatur, Ga. and Asheville, N.C. Sambar’s crosstown compatriot, Downtown L.A.’s Badmaash, has been tweaking Indian flavors with the likes of a spicy lamb burger and chicken tikka poutine since 2013.

However, Thorn cautions, “I’ve been in my job for 16 years and people have been swearing that whole time that Indian cuisine was about to be the next big thing. We’re still waiting for Indian cuisine, in any form, to do something like what Korean food has done in recent years.”